Jan. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Advanced Micro Devices Inc., a maker
of processors for personal computers, accused ex-employees in a
lawsuit of taking “sensitive” company documents when they went
to work for competing chipmaker Nvidia Corp.

The former employees transferred more than 100,000
electronic files pertaining to its graphics business in the days
before they left the company, Advanced Micro said in a filing
dated Jan. 14 in federal court in Boston. The employees also
recruited other AMD workers to leave, the company claims.

“This is an extraordinary case of trade secret
transfer/misappropriation and strategic employee solicitation,”
Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro said in the
complaint.

The documents included confidential information on
licensing agreements with significant customers, proposed
strategies concerning licensing and technical information about
new products and processes the company is developing, the
company said.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Hillman issued a temporary
restraining order requiring the defendants to preserve all
copies of AMD materials and computer storage devices and to
refrain from disclosing confidential AMD information and
attempting to hire any AMD employees.

Peter Mee, a lawyer for the four defendants, said he had no
immediate comment. Bob Sherbin, a spokesman for Santa Clara,
California-based Nvidia, said the company doesn’t comment on
pending litigation. Nvidia isn’t a defendant in the case.

Document Transfers

Three of the former employees -- Robert Feldstein, Manoo
Desai and Nicolas Kociuk -- transferred secret files to storage
devices, according to the complaint. Feldstein, Desai and a
fourth defendant, Richard Hagen, violated agreements not to
solicit other employees for a period of time after leaving the
company, AMD claims.

They all worked at AMD’s site in Boxborough, Massachusetts,
according to the complaint.

Advanced Micro asked for monetary damages and a permanent
injunction to prevent disclosures.

The case is Advanced Micro Devices v. Feldstein, 13-40007,
U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts (Boston).